http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-grades060602.story?coll=sfla%2Dnews%2Dbroward
By Bill Hirschman and Jamie Malernee
Education Writers
Posted June 6 2002
Every student's grades at Western High School are being re-examined
after a junior admitted hacking into the school's computer and
changing classmates' grades for $5, officials said Wednesday.
Barely a week before graduation and final exams, teachers are being
asked to review grades for the 4,500 students at Broward County's
second-largest school.
Two students, described as "computer whizzes," were suspended for 10
days this month for violating the district's student code of conduct
regulating technology that forbids "vandalizing data [and]
infiltrating systems," officials said.
One suspect's parents said the charges are baseless. The boy who
admitted to the hacking is cooperating with investigators, officials
said.
The Sun-Sentinel is not naming the students because they are minors
and no criminal charges have been filed.
District investigators are trying to determine whether other students
were involved, said Joe Melita, executive director of the districtís
investigative unit.
No one knows how many records were changed, but one student has
admitted to altering 20 grades or attendance records, Melita said.
Assistant Principal Monty Escabi said those grades appeared to be for
tests and quizzes, not final grades.
But all teachers were asked in a memo Tuesday to "review your grades
in previously saved documents."
The Davie school - with satellite campuses in Weston and Sunrise - is
one of several in Broward where marks are kept in a centralized
computer program called the electronic gradebook. In theory, only
guidance counselors and administrators have access to every teachers'
individual section of the computer.
Early indications are that the students may have hacked into the
school's computer to get teachers' passwords, Escabi said.
They likely changed other students' grades, not their own, because
they are "very, very smart" kids who fancied themselves as hackers -
and accomplished just that, Escabi said.
"These are not your average students," he said. "They've been around
computers for a long time, have computers at home, and go to hacker
[Web] sites to learn how to do this."
Anonymous tip came in
School officials received an anonymous tip about hacking some months
ago but were unable to find any signs of tampering, said district
spokesman Kirk Englehardt.
Then a parent called two or three weeks ago naming a specific student
who had changed grades, Melita said. The student was questioned and no
indication was found that grades had been changed.
But last week a teacher noticed that a zero she had given a student
had been changed to a 100. When that student was questioned, he named
another student - not the one questioned weeks earlier.
"It's obvious that if a kid is doing nothing in class and then he has
a 90 [percent], well, it's just quite obvious," Escabi said.
The first student admitted that he and a friend had been changing
grades and attendance records "for some time," Melita said.
On Monday, the friend was caught trying to use a teacher's password on
a computer in the school's library. The codes apparently had been
changed and the password didn't work.
That boy's mother said Wednesday that her son got the password from
the first boy and was only trying to check his e-mail on a Web site
blocked from normal access. The first student claimed a chorus teacher
had given his password to several classmates because
Internet-censoring software blocked students from being able to access
Web sites they legitimately used for research on classwork.
Mom defends son
"He did something very foolish. He should have talked to the teacher,"
his mother said, concerned that the district is punishing her son too
severely without proof. "But my son is a good student. He's very
respectful. He has not been in trouble and they're not even giving him
the benefit of the doubt."
She said he didn't know he was doing anything wrong, evidenced by
trying to log on "right in front of the librarian."
The teacher has denied giving the password to anyone, Area
Superintendent Verda Farrow said.
Farrow said the boy was not suspended because of the grade-changing
allegation, but because he was using a teacher's password. However,
his involvement in the grade changing is under investigation.
The suspended students will not be able to return to campus this
school year, but they will be allowed to take their final exams this
summer.
In a memo Wednesday, Western's media specialist warned teachers not to
give their passwords to students, not to leave their computers turned
on and unattended, and to change their password regularly. They were
also advised to do weekly printouts of grades as a backup when such
incidents occur.
Since the discovery, the school has contacted the company that
provides the electronic grade books. New passwords and additional
security measures have been added to prevent future incidents, Escabi
said.
Bill Hirschman can be reached at bhirschman@sun-sentinel.com or
954-356-4513.
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